river and foolishly attacked the British in their strong position on Queenstown Heights; it was defeated with heavy loss. Harrison, who had succeeded to the command in the northwest, now attempted to recover Detroit; but his advanced guard, under General Winchester, was defeated at the river Raisin on the 22d of January, 1813, by the British and Indians under General Proctor, and all the prisoners were cruelly massacred by the Indians. Harrison was then driven back to Fort Meigs by Proctor, who besieged him there, but unsuccessfully.

The War on the Lakes. During the summer of 1813 both British and Americans were busily engaged in building fleets with which to control Lake Erie. On the 10th of September the two fleets met in battle, the British commanded by Commodore Barclay, the Americans by Commodore Perry. The forces were nearly equal. The battle, won by magnificent skill and daring on the part of the American commander, ended in the surrender of the whole British fleet, and turned the scale of war in the northwest. Ferried across the lake by Perry's fleet, Harrison's army now entered Canada, and inflicted a crushing defeat upon Proctor at the river Thames (October 5). This was a severe blow to the Indians also, for their famous leader, Tecumseh, was killed. As a consequence of the victories of Perry and Harrison, the Americans recovered Detroit, and the British were driven from our northwestern territory.

Next summer the Americans again invaded Canada, under command of an excellent general, Jacob Brown, with whom served an officer presently to become famous,- Winfield Scott. They crossed the Niagara river, and defeated the British in four wellfought battles at Chippewa (July 5), Lundy's Lane (July 25), and Fort Erie (Aug. 15 and Sept. 17); but in spite of these successes, they obtained no secure foothold in Canada, and retreated across the river before cold weather. While these things were going on,

the British were planning an invasion of northeastern New York, by the route which Carleton and Burgoyne had followed. To this end it was necessary to gain control of Lake Champlain, as Carleton had done in 1776. Fleets were built, as on Lake Erie the year

before, and on the 11th of September a decisive battle was fought not far from Valcour Island, where Arnold had maintained such a heroic struggle. The British fleet was annihilated by Commodore Macdonough, and the British enterprise was abandoned. But while this attempt upon New York was a failure, the British succeeded in seizing the unoccupied wilds of Maine east of the Penobscot river, and thus creating a panic in New England.

The War in the South. The region west of Georgia and south of the Tennessee river was then a wilderness with no important towns except Natchez and Mobile. The principal military power in it was that of the Creek Indians, who took the occasion to attack the frontier settlements, and in August, 1813, began with a terrible massacre at Fort Mimms, near Mobile. This brought upon the scene the formidable Tennessee militia, commanded by Andrew Jackson, who as a youth had served under Thomas Sumter in the Revolutionary War. After a bloody campaign of seven months, Jackson had completely subdued the Creeks, and was ready to cope with a very different sort of enemy.

In March, 1814, Napoleon was dethroned and sent to Elba, and thus some of Wellington's finest troops were detached for service in America. In August some 5000 of these veterans landed in Chesapeake Bay, took the defenceless city of Washington, and burned the public buildings there, which was not much to their credit. They then attempted Baltimore, but were defeated, and retired from the scene to take part in a more serious enterprise. This expedition against Washington was designed chiefly for insult; the expedition against New Orleans was designed to inflict deadly injury. It was intended to make a permanent conquest of the lower Mississippi, and to secure for Great Britain the western bank of the river. In December the British army of 12,000 men, under Sir Edward Pakenham, landed below New Orleans. To oppose these veterans of the peninsula, Jackson had 6000 militia of that sturdy race whose fathers had vanquished Ferguson at King's Mountain, and whose children so nearly vanquished Grant at Shiloh. He awaited the enemy in an entrenched position, where, on the 8th of Jan

uary, 1815, Pakenham was unwise enough to try to overwhelm him by a direct assault. In less than half an hour the British were in full retreat, leaving Pakenham and 2600 men behind them, killed or wounded; the American loss was 8 killed and 13 wounded. The disparity of loss is perhaps unparalleled in history. Treaty of Ghent. - News travelled so slowly in those days that the victory of New Orleans, like the three last naval victories, occurred after peace had been made. From the first the war had been unpopular in New England. Our victories on the sea made little difference in the vast naval force of Great Britain, which was able to blockade our whole Atlantic coast. Now that Napoleon was out of the way, it would be necessary for the United States to fight single-handed with Great Britain. In view of these things, and provoked by the invasion of Maine, the Federalists of New England held a convention at Hartford, in December, 1814, to discuss the situation of affairs and decide upon the proper course to be pursued. As there was much secrecy in the proceedings, a suspicion was aroused that the purpose of the convention was to break up the Union and form a separate New England confederacy. This suspicion completed the political ruin of the Federalist party. What might have come from the Hartford convention we do not know, for on the 24th of December the treaty of peace was signed at Ghent. The treaty left things apparently just as they had been before the war, for England did not explicitly renounce the right of search and impressment. But in spite of this it had been made evident that European nations could no longer regard the United States as a weak nation which might be insulted with impunity. Partly for this reason, and partly because of the long European peace which followed, the British claim to the right of search and impressment was no longer exercised, and at length in 1856 was expressly renounced.

3. RISE OF THE DEMOCRACY.

The Era of Good Feeling. In the presidential election of 1816, the Federalist candidate, Rufus King, received only 34 electoral votes, against 187 for the Republican candidate, James Mon

roe. In 1820, when Monroe was nominated for a second term, the Federalists put no candidate into the field, and Monroe's election was practically unanimous; for form's sake one of the electors voted for John Quincy Adams, so that no other president might share with Washington the glory of an election absolutely unanimous. The two parties had now acquiesced in each other's measures, and all, save a few malcontents, called themselves Republicans. The end of the war was the end of the political issues which had divided parties since 1789, and some little time was required for new issues to define themselves; so that the period of Monroe's administrations has been called "the era of good feeling." In point of fact, however, it was by no means a time of millennial happiness.

Florida. The changed attitude of the United States toward European powers was illustrated in two events of this period. The Seminole Indians, aided by the Spanish authorities in Florida, molested our southern frontier, until General Jackson invaded that territory in order to put an end to the nuisance. Though Jackson's rough measures were not fully sustained by the United States, yet resistance on the part of Spain was so hopeless that she consented to sell Florida to the United States for five million dollars; and a treaty to this effect was made in 1819.

Monroe Doctrine. — About this time the revolt of Mexico and the Spanish colonies in South America had made considerable progress, and it seemed likely that the "Holy Alliance" of Austria, Prussia, and Russia would interfere to assist Spain in subduing her colonies. To check such a movement, Mr. Monroe declared, in a message to Congress in 1823, that the United States regarded the continents of North and South America as no longer open to colonization, and would resent an attempt, on the part of any European nation to reduce any independent American nation to the condition of a colony. In this bold declaration the United States had the full sympathy of England, and it proved effectual. The attitude of mind implied in such a declaration showed that our period of national weakness was felt to have come to an end.

Growth of the Nation. Since the time of Washington the

growth of the United States had been remarkable indeed. The population now numbered nearly ten million; the public revenue had increased from five million dollars to twenty-five million dollars. New states were formed with surprising rapidity, as the obstacles to migration were removed. The chief obstacles had been the hostility of the Indians, and the difficulty of getting from place to place. During the late war the Indian power had been broken by Harrison in the north, and by Jackson in the south. In 1807 Robert Fulton had invented the steamboat. In 1811 a steamboat was launched on the Ohio river at Pittsburg, and presently such nimble craft were plying on all the western rivers, carrying settlers and traders, farm produce and household utensils. This gave an immense impetus to the western migration. After Ohio had been admitted to the Union in 1802, ten years had elapsed before the next state, Louisiana, was added. But in six years Indiana in 1816,

after the war a new state was added every year: Mississippi in 1817, Illinois in 1818, Alabama in 1819, Maine in 1820, Missouri in 1821. The admission of the last-named state was a portentous event, for it suddenly brought the slavery question into the foreground.

Growth of Slavery. — Before the Revolution all the colonies had negro slaves, but north of Maryland these slaves were few in number and of no very great value as property. Hence they were soon emancipated in all the northern states except Delaware. At the close of the eighteenth century there was a strong anti-slavery feeling even in Virginia and North Carolina, and it was generally supposed that slavery would gradually become extinct without making serious political trouble. The only states strongly in favor of slavery were South Carolina and Georgia, where the cultivation of rice and indigo seemed to make negro labor indispensable. But at about that time the inventions of the steam-engine, the spinning-machine, and the power-loom had combined to set up the giant manufactories of England, and there was thus suddenly created a great demand for cotton. In 1793 Eli Whitney, a Connecticut schoolmaster living in Georgia, invented the famous cotton-gin, an instrument so simple that slaves could use it, and